BAKER LAKE - Walking down the main drag of Baker Lake, you'd hardly know there's a $700 million mine 70 km away, preparing to churn out between 350,000 to 400,000 ounces of gold a year.

Jonathan Tugak of Baker Lake works in the assay lab at the Meadowbank gold mine. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

Sure, there's the occasional green Agnico-Eagle truck parked outside the health centre or the Northern Store. Beside the Jessie Oonark Centre lies a wooden crate with the word "Meadowbank" spray-painted in orange, a relic from the heyday of the mine's construction.

It's not until you begin talking to people that you quickly come to realize that four out of every five Baker Lake residents knows someone who works at Agnico-Eagle's Meadowbank gold mine - if they don't already work there themselves.

By the second quarter of 2010, when Agnico-Eagle expects to have 475 permanent direct employees (not counting contract staff) on site, 35 per cent of that number, or 166 employees, will hail from the Kivalliq region, primarily Baker Lake, but also Rankin Inlet, Arviat, Repulse Bay and Chesterfield Inlet.

A significant amount of training has taken place, both on- and off-site, to equip Nunavummiut with the skills to take on good-paying jobs ranging from blasting ($30.47 an hour) to driving a haul truck ($25.22 an hour). That's no small feat for Nunavummiut living in small communities where often the only available jobs - aside from those offered by the unpredictable exploration industry - are working for the hamlet, the local grocery store or at government-subsidized construction projects.

"It's one of the success stories of training," said, Nunavut's Minister of Education, Louis Tapardjuk, of Meadowbank, the only operating mine in Nunavut. "We have 35 Nunavut residents trained as haul truck drivers, and all of them were hired by the Meadowbank mine."

The department paid for the men to be flown to the Operating Engineers Training Institute of Ontario in Morrisburg.

"There will be one more group of (12 to 15) trainees going to that facility for training early this year," added Tapardjuk.

In fact, every haul truck driver currently working at Meadowbank - including Moses Tookanachiak of Baker Lake - comes from Nunavut.

Tookanachiak, who trained as a haul truck driver in Fort Smith during the mid-1970s, went to the institute both to brush up on his skills and to learn how to operate the specific trucks used at Meadowbank.

"I've been at various mines like Diavik, Lupin, Nanisivik," he said. "I've been carrying this job for most of my life, but this is the very first time I've held a job for over a year."

Being close to his family in Baker Lake made a huge difference, he said.

"I have more communication with family since we got a phone here that is free (to use), and I've got the feeling of closeness at home."

In addition to Meadowbank's Nunavut workforce, businesses in the Kivalliq region, especially those in Baker Lake - Peter Expediting Ltd., Arctic Fuel Services, Baker Lake Contracting & Supplies Ltd. (BLCS), to name only a few - have benefited from the mine's construction, which took place over two years and included the construction of 105 km gravel road from Baker Lake, in addition to the mine's on-site infrastructure.

In the third quarter of 2009, 49.5 per cent of the mine's cumulative construction spending, or $321 million, went to Northern-based companies. Just under four per cent, or $25 million, went to Baker Lake businesses alone.

"Personally, I think it's been good for the community," said Bill Cooper, principal of Jonah Amitnaaq Secondary School, where students take a mandatory Grade 9 primer on mining. "Economic development is few and far between in Nunavut. Arts and crafts, government jobs. A $20 bill will circulate how many times in a community when it's passed from government job to the Northern store (and) back to wherever?"

With the mine in the final stages of commissioning and the first bar of gold planned for pouring later this month, a question remains: will Baker Lake still see the same level of activity, now that construction is over?

"At first when the mining company came here, we had a lot of business," said David Ford, general manager of the Jessie Oonark Centre. "Not just here, but all businesses in town because they had to come here before they could get to the mine.

"Now they have their own airstrip and they're bypassing the town."

Indeed, some contract construction workers who fly to the mine from Quebec admit they've never once set foot in Baker Lake.

The Oonark Centre has begun supplying a cross-section of carvings, tapestries and clothing to a canteen that opens nights in a corner of the Meadowbank cafeteria.

But there's no denying business from Meadowbank has declined at the centre, continued Ford.

"We lost a lot of business when they finished the road and started flying their own stuff in there ... I know a lot of other businesses in town have been losing (business). It's not like it was at first."

Agnico-Eagle is taking steps to increase business opportunities for Baker Lake and beyond during the mine life, said Denis Gourde, Meadowbank mine site manager.

"When it's going to be time to operate, when construction will be completed, most of the jobs done on site will be done with Agnico-Eagle people. Of course, we will maximize the Inuit content," said Gourde.

Agnico-Eagle has hired Graham Dargo, CEO of Dargo and Associates, a Yellowknife consultancy, to craft that very strategy.

"It's about spending a bit more throughout the region," said Dargo. "I think as things proceed, if you came back in a year's time, there are going to be some really good results."

It's too early to say what effect - beyond providing employment and good incomes - the opening of Meadowbank will have on Baker Lake and other communities.

While virtually every Kivalliq employee interviewed for this story waxed positive on the security of his job - Meadowbank is expected to last at least 10 years; continuing exploration of other deposits seeks to extend that life - many admit they miss their families over the course of their two-week shifts.

Jose Aittauq started at Meadowbank in October as a crusher helper and is one of several Nunavummiut training to become an operator at the process plant.

While thankful for his full-time status at Meadowbank, he noted with obvious sadness that, for the first time in his life, he did not spend Christmas at home with his family.

"That was hard," Aittauq said. "And I might have to work next Christmas, too."

Family left behind in Baker Lake is also affected by the distance.

"When we have students come in that are ... away from school, we ask, 'What's going on?' Sometimes we get 'Dad is working at the mine. Mom is working at the mine.' Or both parents are working at the mine," said Cooper. "So there's bound to be some effect when you take somebody out of town and they're away for two weeks."

The lure of a well-paying job has persuaded some (albeit a very small number of) high school students aged 17-19 to leave school to work at the mine, said Cooper, but he added, "It's not a full march out there.

"In terms of working with kids who may have gone out to work at the mine, if they come in, it's almost like exit interviews. (We say), 'So you're going to leave. Are you going to work? What are you going to do there? Is it good for you? Do you need the money? Are you supporting your family? Is there a need for you to go work there?'"

John Nungniok of Whale Cove, who works full-time for Peter Expediting Ltd., which ferries employees and equipment up and down the gravel road to Meadowbank, moved to Baker Lake to begin his job.

But he said he won't work at the mine, citing people who've spoken about the dusty nature of work in the assay lab, where some Nunavummiut assist Agnico-Eagle staff.

"My life is worth more than money," said Nungniok.

Other community members seem annoyed to have to contend with the requirements of such a massive operation, saying their own day-to-day needs are being affected.

Evelyn Niego, for instance, is tired of long waits to have her car serviced by repair shops flooded with orders - far better paying orders, she said - from Meadowbank.

"Sometimes you go to the Northern store and the bread's all gone," she said. "The mine's taken it all."